18, including councillors, held in Bihar for 'liquor party'

Eighteen persons, including two ward councillors and husbands of four women ward councillors, were arrested in Bihar's Bhojpur district on Wednesday evening for participating in a "liquor party", police said.

A team, led by Bhojpur's Superintendent of Police Rakesh Kumar Dubey, raided the house of ward number 31's councillor Himanshu Sinha, in Bhalihipur area under town police station in district headquarters Arrah, and made the arrests.

"We have seized six bottles of Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), eight empty IMFL bottles, and arms and ammunition including a rifle, 73 live rifle cartridges, 60 live pistol cartridges, 15 mobile phones and Rs 7.5 lakh cash during the raid," he said.

Sinha, his brother Kunal Sinha, councillor of ward no 4 Akhilesh Prasad, and Baiju Yadav, Sanjay Gupta, Sailandra Kumar Sinha and Om Prakash (all husbands of woman ward councillors) were arrested, along with Shadab Ahmed, Afroj Alam, Danish, Anil Kumar, Suraj Kumar, Raj Kumar Yadav, Ranjan Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Prabhu Dayal, and Dilip Rajak.

"We conducted the raid at Sinha's house after a local informer gave us a tip-off about the party. We have booked them under various sections of the Bihar Liquor Prevention Act, the Epidemic Disease Act, and Arms Act against them in town police station," Dubey said.

The ward councillors, on the other hand, claimed that they were assembled at Sinha's house for a meeting on corona crisis in the district. - IANS